Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

#RPGaDay 2016 Day 11: Which Gamer Most Affected the Way I Play

Another one I get to punt on... It seems a little awkward to say "everyone" but in reality, that's pretty much the case. For example, in college I had the experience of playing in a Rolemaster oneshot with a GM with an amazing command of Beowulf - and brought it amazingly to life. I've gamed with people who are masters of systems, who are my age with similar gaming experiences, my age with totally different experiences, younger gamers whose first gaming experiences are totally different from mine, etc.

Popular posts from this blog

Shortly after I graduated from college R. Talsorian published their fantasy steampunk RPG, Castle Falkenstein. Having missed out on Space: 1889 when it first came out this was my first steampunk RPG, though I had been exposed to the genre by Gibson and Sterling's novel The Difference Engine (a novel which, though I though I found the setting compelling, I did not particularly care for - must reread some day).

Jules Verne was one of the authors in the inspirational reading section of Castle Falkenstein. Heck, the game also made him into France's scientific advisor, having him responsible for their massive Verne Cannons which formed a sort of nuclear deterrent.
With that in mind, one Sunday afternoon I was at a Barnes & Noble bookstore my new girlfriend (now my wife of nearly 16 years!). On a whim I decided to pick up a Jules Verne novel. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That night I started reading it, never having read any of his works before but having vague memories of t…

High Rock Press currently has a Kickstarter going for Darren Watts's Golden Age Champions. You should go support it. It needs about $5000 more over the next two weeks to reach its $20,000 goal.
I'll offer my own reward... Assuming no hiccups in my regular gaming, I'll run a Golden Age Champions campaign and write about the experience. It should make for interesting reading as while I've read a number of Hero products and played in a few games in college, I've never run a Hero game. Champion Complete peels away many layers of complexity from the 5th and 6th edition Hero games - fine games, but games whose crunchiness really started loading up. My impression is that while Champions Complete is based on the 6th edition of Hero, it seems to be closer to the 4th edition in complexity (the version I played a few times). I've got some Golden Age maps of Port Henry to break out - the Earth-38 version of Port Henry of course.
High Rock Press did a great job delivering…

I thought it might be interesting to post some stats for our Fate Accelerated Star Wars characters. The game is set in the time leading up to Rogue One and A New Hope, with our heroes working for Bail Organa.

These stats are before any milestones are accounted for.

Gaven StarkRefresh: 3Fate Points: 3

High Concept: The old ways are gone and it's up to me to bring them back.Trouble: It may not earn me a medal but it will sure to get me noticedOther Aspects: I know my way around a blaster
[two more aspects open]

Background
Growing up at the end of the Clone Wars, Stark had an idealized vision of the Old Republic and believed the Empire was a noble continuation of it. He served many years in the Imperial Army with distinction but came to realize that the Empire…

I've been avoiding talking too much about the recently completed US presidential election. I've some very strong opinions on it but it's motivated me to relaunch my political blog where I can have a place to focus on it and leave my geeky blog here relatively nonpartisan.

One aspect of the recent election that has caught my eye which does have applicability to fiction and RPGs is the prevalence of "fake news". For example, I saw the following on my Facebook feed a few gazillion times:

The problem with that quote is Trump never said that. For good measure, here is a quote that Clinton never said:

These sorts of fake quotes were a serious problem during the recent election, as were news sites which treated them as real. And partisan news sites that took a real story and slanted it beyond recognition to fit a certain world view.
As our world becomes more and more digital, this will become a greater problem. How hard would it be to inject a totally fictional charact…